Excellency the First Lady of Rwanda, Jeannette Kagame;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Dear participants;
At the opening of this conference dedicated to retrospective reflection on a genocide that thirty years ago saw more than a million men, women, children, and babies brutally exterminated simply for being born Tutsi, I extend my sincere thanks to each participant for responding positively to the invitation.
The Genocide plunged all of humanity into mourning and touched what was most sacred, life itself. The Rwandan Tutsi were the target of a widespread, cruel, violent and systematic extermination that was executed according to a terrible plan derived by the government, aimed at their total destruction. This human slaughter concluded the 20th century and is now part of humanity’s common history.
A Rwandan proverb says, “If you don’t know where you come from, you can’t know where you’re going.” This symposium precisely aims to look back at the past that led to the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi, how Rwanda and other states faced its consequences, and the future of memory for younger generations. That’s why we have chosen themes related to the political context that allowed the preparation and execution of the Genocide, national and international justice, writing, denial, and the eradication of the ideology that underlies it.
Indeed, one of the particularities of the Genocide against the Tutsi is that it was perpetrated across the entire national territory in a record time of three months. The government, the army, the gendarmerie, local authorities, political parties, the media, intellectuals, civil society organizations, and many other entities participated in the systematic and widespread elimination of the Tutsi.
The culture of impunity played a major role in the massive participation of the Hutu population in the execution of the Genocide. Active involvement in the killings was a source of pride, and those who opposed the extermination ideology were considered traitors to the Hutu cause. On May 20, 1963, Rwanda promulgated a scandalous law that enshrined impunity for the murderers of the Tutsi. This law, accompanied by politicians’ hate speech, made ordinary peasants understand that killing a Tutsi was meritorious, and not a punishable crime.
The perpetration of the genocide against the Tutsi was facilitated by the centralized nature of the governance system. The organs of the ruling party, MRND, were merged with the structures of local communities down to the village level. This type of political organization, combined with other discriminatory factors targeting Tutsi, such as discrimination in schools and employment, and the monopolization of power by a clique of dignitaries from the President’s, or his wife’s, native region, fueled the steamroller of the genocide.
The authorities organized the youth into militias, Interahamwe (those who attack together)
and Impuzamugambi (those united by the same goal), these were the key instruments and the groups were the vanguard of the genocide execution. Once sacred places, such as churches, became true slaughterhouses, sometimes with the direct participation and complicity of religious leaders. This was the case for Catholic parishes like Ndera, Nyange, Sainte Famille, and Saint Paul Kabgayi, Byimana, Nyundo, Crête Congo Nil, Mubuga, Kaduha, Gatagara, Nyanza, Sovu, Shangi, Hanika, Nyamasheke, Kibeho, Butare, Muganza, and others, as well as Protestant parishes like Shyogwe, Kirinda, Nyakizu, Gitwe, Mugonero, Gihundwe, among others. One of the particularities of the Genocide against the Tutsi was its success in involving representatives from all levels of the population, including the most
educated and devout.
The Genocide was stopped by the Rwandan Patriotic Front on July 4, 1994, with the liberation
of Kigali. The country was drained of life. The Government of National Unity focused on building peace in society by creating a synergy between all actors. Justice was established as a prerequisite for national unity. Since independence, Rwanda had never adopted a law punishing the crime of genocide. Therefore, it was necessary to break with the culture of impunity. The law on the repression of genocide and crimes against humanity was passed on August 30, 1996, to judge the suspects awaiting trial.
The large number of perpetrators awaiting trial and other post-genocide problems led to public consultations held between 1998 and 1999 at the office of the President of the Republic, which concluded with the establishment of the Gacaca courts. To understand the magnitude of the problem, as of December 31, 2002, there were 104,143 detainees jailed for involvement in genocide, compared to 12,322 prisoners for common law crimes. Providing fair and equitable judgment within a reasonable period following conventional criminal procedure was impossible. Hence, to provide recourse to the victims of the
Genocide we resloved to adopt Gacaca, which yielded commendable results in providing
them with justice.
On the international level, the UN created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on November 8, 1994. Despite serious faults and shortcomings of this Tribunal, it achieved significant jurisprudential gains that allowed the establishment of the truth. Firstly, the decision on September 2 1998, during the first trial involving Jean Paul Akayesu, was of irrevocable historical fact. The Judges, led by the late Senegalese magistrate Laïty Kama, established the specific materiality of the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi, rejecting the irresponsible defense arguments that claimed there had been a civil war in Rwanda, not a genocide. Here is their conclusion: “It appears clearly that the massacres that occurred in Rwanda in 1994 had a specific objective: to exterminate the Tutsi, specifically chosen because of their ethnic group membership, and not because they were FPR fighters.
A genocide was committed in Rwanda in 1994 against the Tutsi as a group.” June 16 2006, is another memorable date when the ICTR made a significant decision to abruptly stop the denial prevailing within the Tribunal itself, affirming that the genocide against the Tutsi committed “between April 6 and July 17, 1994, is a matter of public knowledge” that should no longer be contested. It was a victory for the truth over a lie that the genocidaires and their accomplices hoped to use for a long time. It has forever remained a nail driven into the coffin of denialists.
Another great merit of the ICTR is that is that it established an international jurisprudence now irrevocable, and now a mandatory rule of international criminal law, whereby rape and sexual violence inflicted on Tutsi women constitutes a crime of genocide. The female witnesses and survivors of the genocide were extremely courageous to stand in front of the accused and their lawyers and tell them straight to their faces what is not said in Rwandan culture: the atrocity of rape. This journey was an ordeal for them given the humiliations they suffered at the Arusha Tribunal, but the judgment was a restoration of the honor of the women raped during the genocide.
The path was very perilous when we remember the scandal that marked the humiliation of a raped woman, T.A., in the Shalom Ntahobari trial. Her Kenyan lawyer, Mr. Duncan Mwanyumba, asked shocking questions of violent cruelty to the victim, including the following: “Did Shalom remove all the clothes you were wearing? Did you keep your skirt, or was it also removed? After that, were you naked? Describe what happened next. What did he do? Do you remember when you last showered? Were these the conditions in which Shalom found you that last night? Did Shalom use condoms? Would you say that in the conditions in which you were, not having showered, you smelled bad?”
The judges did not stop these offensive statements scandalously, and they even laughed unrestrained at the desperation of the witness victim. Their duty of restraint, impartiality, and protection of witnesses was completely forgotten. These humiliations of witnesses are frequent in the trials of genocidaires abroad, notably in Belgium. The witnesses are called liars while they speak of the crimes they have suffered.
It is important to salute the courage of some members of the ICTR prosecution who fulfilled their duty of justice brilliantly. In the trial recognizing rape as an element of genocide, without the firmness of Pierre Richard Prosper, the prosecutor’s representative in this trial, the outcome would certainly not have been the same.
Let’s now move to the media sector. As early as 1990, there were journalists who fulfilled their duty to inform. Some independent local newspapers, such as Le Flambeau, Kanguka, and others, as well as the international media, published articles warning of the risk of genocide and exposing the criminal nature of the Rwandan regime. They notably called on France to stop all support for this regime, but the call was ignored.
The French daily L’Humanité of November 22, 1991, exposed the French army’s overzealousness in their intervention in Rwanda: ““Paris is complicit. Faced with the forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the French soldiers sent in October 1990, under the eternal pretext of defending the lives of our nationals, provided supervision of the government army. It is French officers who conduct the vigorous interrogations of the Patriotic Front fighters.” Similar articles were published in L’Humanité on March 13, 1992, and February 28, 1993, denouncing “the killers of General Habyarimana” and “the strategy of massacring populations adopted by the regime to thwart the Arusha negotiations.”
The Libération newspaper of June 11 1992, sent the same alert: “In Brussels, the Rwandan opposition met with the FPR rebels, noting their common will to end the fighting and form a ‘government of national unity.’ However, President Habyarimana and his business entourage are not forced to resign as long as France fuels their war against the Tutsi revanchists.” Libération on February 9, 1993, rang the same alarm bell, this time openly evoking an ongoing genocide: “In the distant hills of Rwanda, France supports a regime that for two years with its militias and death squads organizes the extermination of the Tutsi minority. These death squads, organized in ‘Network Zero’ by the President’s clan, manage the Tutsi genocide as a public service.”
L’Evènement du Jeudi of June 25 1992, made the same observation of a genocide in preparation: “The great friend of François Mitterrand and his son Jean-Christophe, President Juvénal Habyarimana does not really seek to contain and even less to sanction the fanatical groups that have sworn to provoke the total extermination of the remaining 14% of Tutsi.”
After the genocide, the journalist Patrick De Saint Exupéry was one of the key actors in documenting the genocide for the poorly informed French public. He deserves a tribute not only for his work against denial but also for the series of articles he published in the daily Le Figaro. The first series was launched during the week of January 12 to 15, 1998, with four outstanding articles. He described President Mitterrand’s conviction that a genocide in Africa was of no importance; the engagement of French military and diplomats in a hellish spiral in Rwanda, siding with the Hutu power; the complicity between the Left and the Right during the cohabitation period that began in April 1993; The time of hypocrisy by engaging
the French army in Operation Turquoise.
From April 1 to 9 1998, Patrick De Saint Exupéry published another series of nine articles of profound relevance, arguing that “Paris’ strategy was highly influenced by personal relations between the Mitterrands and the entourage of President Habyarimana; the lies of the French State which ignored the signs of the genocide despite warnings from the most informed diplomats and military personnel; the weapons of genocide; the war of the infiltrated Abacengezi in the northwest; the delivery of weapons after the beginning of the genocide; The omissions of the Quilès report on Rwanda.” These publications have given immense strength to many people in France to continue their fight against impunity and denialism.
Patrick de Saint Exupéry was often dragged into court by political and military actors whose compromises with the Rwandan genocidal regime he denounced. 30 years later, the results are there: the truth has triumphed. The denial of the Genocide against the Tutsi is punishable by the law in France since 2017. In 2021, the Duclert report concluded that France had a heavy and overwhelming responsibility.
Among the journalists who remarkably worked to uncover the truth and facts, we pay tribute to the late Jean Chatain of the newspaper L’Humanité in France, who died on December 5, 2019. During the Genocide, Jean Chatain was one of the few Western reporters to cover the area conquered by the FPR and produce objective, informative articles. He published two major works on the Tutsi genocide: “Landscape after the Genocide” (2007); then “Night and Fog over Rwanda” (2020), published posthumously. The book is a compilation of articles he published between 1990 and 1994.
Among the deceased journalists whose work is not to be forgotten is also Pascal Krop, who published in August 1994, for the first time in France, a work with a strong title: “Should the Mitterrands be judged?” He was the first to state the obvious responsibility of President Mitterrand in the Tutsi Genocide. His responsibility is no longer disputable today. Human rights actors also played a remarkable role in alerting international opinion. In August 1992, Mr. André Jadoul and Mr. Eric Gillet established a detailed report on the criminal nature of the Habyarimana regime. Their report notably documented the use of Rwandan prisons as methods of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
In Belgium, other actors and legal professionals, now deceased, also worked for the memory and justice of the Genocide. We think of Professor Eric David, who made several publications on the specificity of the Tutsi genocide and international responsibilities, Mr. Edouard Jakhian, Mr. Michel Graindorge, Maxime Steinberg, who played a key role in activity to preserve memory, and Willy Fabre, who was one of the first to create information sites on the Tutsi genocide such as RWANDANET WIRIRA and WIHOGORA. He had obtained Rwandan nationality under the name of Moses Sendanyoye.
The work of NGOs was also relevant. On March 7 1993, an International Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda published a report that demonstrated the mechanics of a system of civilian massacres maintained by the Rwandan power against the Tutsi. The Commission highlighted the involvement of the highest Rwandan authorities, naming specifically President Habyarimana and his wife, the Minister of Public Works Joseph Nzirorera, Colonel Elie Sagatwa, and the Prefect of Ruhengeri Charles Nzabagerageza.
The Commission was led by Jean Carbonare, who in January 1993 was one of the first to raise the alert of the risk of an ongoing genocide in Rwanda. The image of him in tears on French television France2 in front of the emotional gaze of journalist Bruno Masure remains a significant event which showed his indignation.
We should also mention the immense work of the members of the association SURVIE. Some
of them have died, leaving a legacy of very good deeds. Let’s start with the late Gilles Durou, who is the least known but not the least courageous. Deceased on September 22 2003, Gilles was the first to conduct a field investigation in Butare in July 1995 on the responsibility of Dr. Sosthène Munyemana. He subsequently participated in the creation in Bordeaux of the association “Collectif Girondin pour le Rwanda,” which filed its first complaint against Munyemana on October 18, 1995. Gilles had also created a traveling exhibition on the Tutsi genocide and commemoration which he showed in the schools he traveled to at his own expense to educate people about the Genocide.
In the same line of action, the relentless work of the late Sharon Courtoux, François Xavier Verschave, and Géraurd De La Pradelle are also of invaluable worth. Through their regular publications, notably the Monthly “Billets d’Afrique et d’ailleurs,” and the establishment of the SURVIE Citizen Inquiry Commission, SURVIE accomplished extraordinary work. There is also Jean Paul Goûteux, an active researcher in SURVIE France, who documented the grey areas on France’s responsibilities in the Genocide. Among his works are “A Secret State Genocide” and “The Rwandan Night.” Jean Paul fought for the judgment of the perpetrators of the Genocide and their accomplices. His wish was fulfilled when we see the reality of the trials being conducted in France and the determination of the Prosecutor’s Office to complete other cases.
In Belgium, the Committee for the Respect of Human Rights and Democracy in Rwanda meticulously documented the ethnic assassinations of the Habyarimana regime.
For example, the document it published in December 1991 titled “Fourteen Months of Repression in Rwanda: The Democratization Process in Peril” provided a list of 901 cases of blatant human rights violations committed by the Habyarimana regime with names and surnames, dates, and places of birth. These cases are distributed as follows: 418 people killed, 394 people released following the intervention of international NGOs, and 89 people illegally lost their jobs because they are Tutsi or have political opinions opposed to the power.
African writers also played a key role in preserving memory. The initiative “Writing for the Duty of Memory,” which began in July 1998 under the impulse of the Fest’Africa negro-African literature festival, greatly contributed to documenting the memory of the Tutsi genocide. A dozen works were published.
In this colloquium, we will give the floor to the survivors of the genocide, who were the pioneers of resilience after the genocide, fighting for survival and life. They have gathered their testimonies in a book that I recommend, “HEAR US.” The book will be presented in the middle of this conference. The association AVEGA they created in the aftermath of the genocide has helped these widows regain psychological balance, which has enabled them to withstand the harsh sufferings born from the genocide.
To conclude, I summarize by saying that one cannot be exhaustive in describing the path leading to the genocide and the journey of these thirty years. Many actors, Rwandan and foreign, have acted. They have laid important foundations for the future. I finish by considering the current situation, referring to a saying that goes, “Cursed be the closed eyes when they must remain open.” May this conference be for all of us a moment to keep our eyes open, to serenely analyze the past, to draw the necessary lessons, and to remind the world that the “Never Again” is not yet respected. The provisions of the genocide convention are not translated into action to save human lives threatened by genocide. On the borders of Rwanda in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the same killers from 1994 and their recruits are hosted and supported by the Congolese State and continue their crimes. Raise your voice. There can be no true memory if the crimes that shed blood continue thirty years later.
I wish you fruitful discussions.
